THE LAST GOOD BYE

On a very hot day I said good bye to my friend Ilona's mother who had become my friend too. She fell asleep forever at the age of 93. She had asked to be incinerated.

In Belgium incinerations started in 1963 with just one Crematorium in Brussels. But as the number of people who wanted to be incinerated increased by around 50 %, it was not enough anymore. So for the Brabant Waloon region a new one was built and opened in 2011.

It is located in the middle of the countryside near a little town Court St. Etienne. The building is very modern and completely neutral. No religious signs whatsoever nowhere. Each person can decorate the room he gets for the ceremony just like he wants. In this case it was very simple 3 rows on each side and a place for the coffin in the middle. On the opposite walls hung a screen on the wall which showed a slide show of the whole life of my friend.




The architect had done a real masterpiece, the building is simple with an easy access and decorated in a very neutral nearly cheerful way.



On the walls everywhere colorful paintings on grey/white walls




The ceremony, Ilona, and her sister held a short speech, there was no priest although my friend had been very religious. As Belgium is catholic and nothing else, in the last years she had enough of the catholic religion and stopped going to church. There had been too many scandals. She preferred to have her own religion and this was also respected in the ceremony. A female deacan spoke some short Bible texts and a prayer. The music was a French chanso. For a 93 year old lady the service she had asked for was really very modern, nothing of a classical funeral ceremony ! After the ceremony family and friends had coffee and sandwiches.







These three pictures show the beautiful surrounding. Some people prefer to keep the ashes in an urn and this is the cemetary



There are the fields for the ashes



and the only spectators are cows.

more participants here

FRIDAY's FAVE FIVE - FIVE ON FRIDAY

1. After having decided not to blog every day and make a break, because I had ran out of writer's cramps, now suddenly they came back !

I got very sad news to start the week, my friend Ilona's mother aged 93 after having celebrated mother's day with champagne, got a stroke during the night and on her wish was euthanized surrounded by the whole family 4 days later because she would have stayed completely paralayzed. She had made a will years ago to put an end to her life if ever this would happened despite the fact that she was very religious.  She was an amazing women still lived in her apartment, did her shopping and everything alone and at the age of 85 went to Israel, Jordan and Egypt !! She had nothing at all and walked like a young girl. She was my example how to age nicely.



Here I am with Ilona and her mother on her 90th birthday ! She had never been sick in her whole life which began in a very poor family and she had to work very hard from 13 years on !

Euthanasia is allowed in Belgium if you are very ill and there is nothing to do anymore and you have filled in a special demand. That's what she had done

2. Our Facebook "Vivre à Waterloo" (living in Waterloo) had its monthly meeting in the Jollywood restaurant.



Nicole and another friend came with me. We were about 40 the man right below in the striped shirt is the founder of the group which meanwhile counts about 3000 members. We not only had a drink but we also had a little supper there. It's so nice to know people life and not only virtually.

3. The most unwelcome visitor in Belgian history unfortunately dared to visit the hell hole Brussels ! We all admired that he was so "courageous" and play with his life ! Unfortunately he survived at least so far.





To the anger of all people the streets were he drove through were closed, it was a traffic mess in Brussels and it was good that he was so protected that you couldn't even throw rotten tomatoes at him. Protesters against his visit were on the streets, what a difference to when Obama came to Brussels !

4.


There was a flea market in Waterloo and I had a look if there was something interesting to buy, but besides this cute dog who wasn't for sale I found nothing met nobody and finally went home.

5. So far I had always refused to buy a smartphone and was with my traditional little old Samsung mobile. But then it became more and more evident that sooner or later I had to buy one, because now they started also that you can pay with your smartphone and a lot of other things. I did a market study on internet and finally bought the Samsung Galaxy J5 and ever since am busy to install all what I need. It's only the second day I have it and with some functions I am still in war !

Fast Blog

more participants at Susanne at Living to tell the Story.

WEDNESDAY HODGEPODGE - WORDLESS WEDNESDAY

1. What color is prominent in your home? Are you glad about that or wishing you could cover it up or remove it?

I love light and cheerful colours so my home is all in orange, red and warm yellow. My kitchen's walls are red, one wall in the living is red and these colors dominate the whole house. Even if I wanted to change it would be impossible the colors come back from alone. They are also present in all my paintings. 

2. What's something you'll NEVER do again?
Riding on a Harley Davidson or other motor bike !

3. Tell us a couple of ways you fit the stereotypes associated with your gender, and a couple of ways you don't.

I like to put on make up, I go to the hairdresser and I love to be well dressed in a very casual way. What I don't like is household, garden work or other house works, knitting, sewing etc ! 

4. May is Motorcycle Awareness Month. Have you ever owned a motorcycle? Ever ridden a motorcycle? If the opportunity presented itself would you hop on a motorcycle and go for a ride?

I have never owned a motorcycle, but I rode on a Harley Davidson with Mr. G.'s friend ! In the mountains with little curvy streets !! When he stopped he had blue spots on his thighs where I had hold myself with my fingers !

5. If someone wanted to understand you, what should they read, watch, and listen to?

My whole behaviour !

6. Insert your own random thought here.

Right now I am thinking how to get to a neighbor village to pick up a Scrabble game, which somebody doesn't need anymore,  right after my aqua gym ! 

From this side of the pond

******

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY







Made with bath towels, my bed decoration in Egypt




more participants here

A LITTLE BREAK

Since a few months I noticed that I don't have writer's cramps anymore, because of too much writing  but rather a writer's block ! After 9 1/2 years of nearly daily blogging because my head was full of stories and the need to write, now I have difficulties and a lack of ideas to put a sentence together !

Therefore I decided to give me a break and wait until the block disappears. I have no idea how long it will last but meanwhile I will still publish pictures on my photo Blog and of course visit my blog friends ! 

KEYHOLE PICTURES

FRIDAY's FAVE FIVE - FIVE ON FRIDAY

1. Good things come quickly to an end and Monday was my last day of my Egyptian holidays ! It was as if the hotel celebrated my departure because they started the morning with a special event.



First a frog showed up and greeted the guests,





A closer view

Followed by the staff making local music and the cooks carrying the tray around the beach. 



Arriving at the swimming pool it turned out that it was a "Fruit Festival" ! Fruits and also the food is delicious in this hotel, our so said "organic" was tasteless against it ! All guests agreed to that !

3. I spent the morning at the beach and said good bye and then dressed for "winter" and  had my last lunch there. At 2 am I was picked up by a bus and driven to the airport.

This time it went a little quicker and I only had to take off my shoes twice, I didn't ring when I went through the scan so everything went smooth. As I went to Brussels the plane was full of Belgians. I don't know but I was less controlled with my German passport and apparently was less suspicious than the Belgians, probably because of the terrorists who lived in Brussels ! Mr. G. picked me up and we were at home at 11 pm.

4. The next day the sun was shining fortunately, so it was less harder to get used to the colder weather !



Once I had unpacked my suitcase, Pookie took the opportunity and choose it as her new bed !

The afternoon I spent with Nicole on her terrace it was nice and warm and I told her about my holidays ! In November she will come with me because then I return !!

5. During our painting class, I didn't paint very much I mostly told about my holidays !



Nicole had retouched the sky of her horse painting and suddenly her horse had only 3 legs, the sky had covered the 4th ! We had a lot of fun with her horse because first it had 4 legs which were wrong then she added two legs which made 6 and then she took two away and had four and because of her sky she ended up with 3 ! That's why she is laughing so much and we too when we saw her master piece !

more participants at Susanne at Living to tell the Story.

Fast Blog

linking to Willy Nilly Friday five

WEEKEND REVIEW - MAY 6 HOLYDAYS END

This is the last weekend in Hourghada tomorrow I return home into the cold, compared to here.

I spent the weekend as all other days after breakfast on the beach until lunch and then after lunch again on the beach, where usually I fell asleep !

Of course I have a lot to do, I have to swim to chat with different people mostly Germans and English, there are very few other nationalities.




This is my view around my beach bed.

Of course I also love to watch people, some of them make me laugh as this one



who walked around making selfies with different backgrounds !




Salesmen are walking around and talk people to death to convince them either to do an excursion, or watch fishes in a glass boat, or massages or hairdresser etc etc. To avoid to be disturbed I got a little red flag which I hang on my umbrella because after all these years I of course know all this.




I saw an Ibis eating a fish, but by the time I got my camera ready the naughty thing flew away !

I also like to find out the nationality of the people and bet with myself if they are Germans or from the UK. With the men it's very easy, all English men are tattooed at least I didn't find any without a tattoo, while the Germans are without any body art. A very big man with a golden chain around the neck I thought he was Russian and yes he was. Women are more difficult, maybe the English once have a little bit more weight and sometimes also tattoos.


This man was very brown and could compete with David Beckham.

I also saw a little lady with a pink face and white hair and thought she looks like Miss Marple so she MUST be English, but no, she was German ! She was very flattered when I told her what I thought. One thing they have all in common, they all like to laugh and make fun !



After having inspected the shower, three men then replaced the top of the shower, one worked, the second gave his opinion and the third did the survey (together with me !)



When I returned to my room at 5 pm, I found an alien in my bed, who held the remote control in his arms ! I put him on the other bed and had a new companion !

more participants here